


Worlds Apart

by afterwit



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterwit/pseuds/afterwit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Small glimpses of Carlos and Cecil, from suspicion to waking up together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worlds Apart

It was a long road to changing his mind about Cecil.

Night Vale had been unnerving nearly constantly, and terrifying at other times. It must have been several months, Carlos thought, before he had decided he liked that voice on the radio. The one that spoke of him, spoke of the town.

Much like anything in Night Vale, he was an unknown. At first, he was apprehensive. What did Cecil know about him? Who was he working for? Cecil was a source of information, and a person who could relay his important findings.

Carlos sat up from his microscope, frowning. The other scientists snickered and teased him, but Carlos was slightly bothered by it all. Who was Cecil to say things like that?

And yet, did he mean them?

It was a source of confusion, suspicion.

———————————————————————————————————————

He sat at a table in his lab, hollow remains of clocks strewn about the surface, and in a petri dish, something grey and slightly sticky. He poked at it, pulling the recorder from his lab coat pocket and murmuring into it.

He had tested many clocks- some new, some even the wall clock that had been there when he arrived in the lab. They were all the same- mostly hollow on the inside.

He needed to tell everyone, to inform them. He looked at his phone on the table, and frowned slightly. He and Cecil had spoken in passing before, always on matters of business.

And this was just as important, wasn’t it?

He picked up the phone, picking Cecil’s number from his contacts list.

He hesitated.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Listening to the radio in the evenings had become almost a routine. Funny, he had once approached that voice on the other end with suspicion, with caution. Even the odd and weird things from the city were reported as if that was simply the way of things. At times, Cecil sounded concerned, frightened, and those moments evoked the same fear in Carlos.

Cecil was a greater mystery to him than anything else in the town. But there was something else there. At some point, Carlos had grown fond of him.

————————————————————————————————————

He stepped into his lab, the feeling of Cecil’s lips against his own having not quite faded yet, and he locked the door behind himself. He knew exactly when he had realized that Cecil was more than just a voice on the other end of a radio. It was the same moment that he was dragged from the underground city- he knew, somehow, that he didn’t want anything else to happen to him. He didn’t want to live with the regret of never telling Cecil that, somehow, he cared for him.

Night Vale was strange, it was almost malevolent at times, but there was something else there. The people, especially Cecil, were far more curious to him than any strange forest, or black helicopters that flew overhead. And though Carlos was no stranger to relationships, he rarely had any that lasted. 

He smiled.

There was work to be done…but he’d have to call Cecil again.

——————————————————————————————————

Getting to know Cecil beyond his work was an adventure in itself. Something that he had learned in the year he had spent in Night Vale was that, of anyone, Cecil seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve. Carlos never had to guess what Cecil was thinking, feeling.

In the strange green light of early dawn, Cecil’s still sleeping face was lit by the strange light that Carlos knew was the sun.

He slipped from the bed, grabbing pants from the floor and stepping into those.

Everything in this city was fascinating, but Cecil was a greater and more important thing than anything else here.

It was strange- sometimes Cecil would tell him stories he could hardly believe. And yet, he knew they were only the truth.

Carlos’s world had been cities and the strangest thing that might happen to someone would be finding money on the street, or winning the lotto. Or getting struck by lightning. Those sort of things, he was familiar with.

But here, in Night Vale, the first thing he had to do was partially suspend his disbelief. Cecil’s world, the “home” he knew was far more curious than anything in the rest of the world. And yet, this was the mundane to Cecil. Nearly omniscient governments, police that observed everything, even the mysterious hooded figures that sometimes spirited away small children.

That was Cecil’s normal.

It was something he ruminated over as he waited for his coffee to brew- a single cup; he rarely had need for more than that. He briefly considered waking Cecil to watch the sun come up and bathe the city in light that he knew would change to mauve and then properly align itself with the white light that shone elsewhere, as if everything was normal in Night Vale.

He smiled.

And yet, this, too, was normal, wasn’t it? Cecil sleeping soundly and snoring occasionally, rolling about in his sleep- that was normal, wasn’t it?

Carlos smiled softly, pouring creamer into his coffee. Perhaps it was a type of normal he could get used to- that he wanted to get used to.

“Good morning.”

Carlos turned, smiling. Cecil leaned against the entry to the kitchen, wearing a loose tunic and a pair of loose pants.

“Morning. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

Cecil shook his head. “Only slightly. I felt you move from the bed, and I thought either you had been spirited away, or you were in here. I’m glad I checked the kitchen before heading out to the abandoned mineshaft.”

Carlos chuckled slightly, stepping closer and giving Cecil just one kiss- their lips together for just a moment, and Cecil grinned.

“Do you want some coffee?” Carlos gestured to the small machine.

“I suppose I’ll have a cup.”

And that was normal, wasn’t it? Despite being from two different worlds, somehow they had brought them together, each equally fascinated by the other’s.

Funny, how things worked out.


End file.
